MANILA, Philippines — “To those who hate me, you are under no obligation to accept any of my projects — housing, education, healthcare, social benefits.”
This was how Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte on Thursday answered her critics who slammed the alleged slow response of the city government to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis.
As of Friday, the Philippines has recorded 230 cases of COVID-19, including 18 deaths.
Out of the overall number, 38 of the confirmed cases are in Quezon City.
Quezon City is now under a state of calamity to allow local officials to “utilize a portion of its quick-response funds” to address the spread of the disease.
“To those who hate me, you are under no obligation to accept any of my projects – housing, education, healthcare, social benefits,” Belmonte answered in a Facebook post.
“That means there will be more for those who truly have faith in me as their leader,” she added.
Belmonte then went on to tell her critics to instead just show their hatred in the 2022 elections, saying: “Because the people who want to be served and patiently wait for it don’t deserve for their lives and that of their families to be politicized.”
The Quezon City mayor, meanwhile, said that 400,000 food packs will be distributed to families living in the 142 barangays of the city.
Belmonte then answered her critics about the alleged response of the city government: We are slow? I think perhaps the suppliers were overwhelmed by the volume we were ordering and could not comply immediately even if we placed our order the day after the President announced an Enhanced Community Quarantine.”
The mayor then answered her critics on her alleged lack of a plan to contain the COVID-19 threat in Quezon City.
“I don’t have a plan? That was the plan,” she lashed back. “The barangays using their Quick Response Funds released because we were the very first city to declare a State of Calamity would be used to support our constituents for the first week since I already knew that a volume of goods for 2M people would take time to arrive.”
“That’s bigger than the population of the second and third largest cities in NCR. I thank our barangays for your extremely hard work these past few days,” she added.